As the sun creeps further to the south,daytime in the northern hemisphere
gets shorter and shorter, the weather colder and colder. Finally, the longest
night of the year comes. It is the Winter Slostice , after which the sun begins
its slow return to the North.The Chinese call this day Dongzhi.It usually falls
on December21 or 22.
Why do the Chinese celebrate the shortest day of the year? Well, the cu-
stom comes from the theory of Yin and Yang. Yin symbolizes the feminine,negative
and dark qualities of the universe, while yang stands for the opposite the
masculine, positive and fiery qualities. In a sense, the theory is dialectical.
When something goes to one extreme, it will then go to the opposite extreme.
On the day of Dongzhi, when sunshine is weakest and daytime shortest,the
Yin qualities of darkness, of cold, are at their most powerful. From this point
on, they begin to weaken, giving way to the light and warmth of Yang. As has
happened since the beginning of time, once again the black forces bringing sick-
ness and death slowly submit to their opposites bringing life and health. From
this day on , Yang gets stronger and stronger until it prevails with the earth's
awakening in the glorious rebirth of spring.It is a time for optimism,for joyful
celebration.
The Winter Solstice has been an important festival for millennia. Records
from the Eastern Han Dynasty about 1,800 years ago tell us that the emperor and
court officials would take a few days off work for the occasion.
By the time of the fouth century, celebration of Dongzhi had developed
into a grandiose ceremony.Regiments of soldiers and cavalry, smart in full dress
uniform, were stationed in and around the Imperial City. Colorful flags flapped
stiffly in the north wind. The sound of pipes and drums echoed through the brigh-
tly decorated streets.
The ordinary people also celebrated in style. The longest night of the
year was a time to put on one's best brand new clothes, to visit friends with
gifts, to laugh and drink deep into the long night. The giving of gifts was par-
ticularly important. Three hundred years ago, a Qing Dynasty poet wrote a poem
describing how people racked their brains out to buy the most appropriate pre-
sents only to get them back from other friends a few days later. When we think
of Christmas and birthdays, this would seem to be a universal phenomenon!
During the Western Jin Dynasty about 1,700 years ago,shoes and socks were
very popular presents among both royalty and the common folk . Court officials
would present the emperor with elaborately-made shoes and socks, wishing the
divingSon of the Dragonwansui or ten thousand birthdays.Similarly, all married
women were wupposed to make a set of embroidered shoes and socks and present
them to their in-laws. We are not sure why this custom evolved, perhaps it had
something to do with the importance of keeping one's feet warm in winter.
Food is an important part of all Chinese festivals.But the kinds of food
people eat during the Winter Solstice vary from place to place.In Nothern China,
many people eat mutton and dog meat.These are hot Yang foods, bringing warmth to
the body and dispelling the cold of Yin.Noodles are popular in many areas. For
from now on,daytime starts to get longer and we say every day gets longer by the
length of a thread.So the noodles specially made for the festival are calledLong
Thread Noodles.
In the old days, dumplings were often eaten in menory of Doctor Zhang
Zhongjing. Doctor Zhang was not only a brilliant doctor, able to cure all sorts
of diseases, be was also very kind to the poor.
One year the winter was so cold that many people in Zhang Zhongjing's home
town of Nanyang,in today's Henan Province,suffered from very painful chilblains.
Seeing that his small clinic was no longer able to accommodate the ever increasing
number of patients,Zhang asked his brother to put up a tent in the village square.
A large cauldron was placed inside the tent to prepare a decoction of red pepper
mixed with other medicinal herbs. Doctor Zhang had dumplings stuffed with mutton
boiled in this medicinal soup. Every patient got a bowl of the spicy decoction
with two dumplings. He had only just invented this mixture, but it worked like a
dream:chilblains disappeared in a day or two. Doctor Zhang's mixture soon became
a popular recipe throughout the land. When Zhang Zhongjing died, people began to
eat dumplings on the day of the Winter Solstice in memory of the kind doctor ,
and also, perhaps, to prevent or cure chilblains.